A singer and songwriter from South East Cornwall jetted off to Miami at the beginning of February to attend the first ever TikTok Live Fest awards.

The awards, hosted by Terry Crewes, saw live creators from over 50 countries attend and was hosted to provide acknowledgement to the app’s best creators from all over the world.

Only 10 creators from the UK attended.

Charlie Harris grew up in South East Cornwall and studied at Devonport High School for Girls before going onto study music at City College, Plymouth whilst busking and gigging around Devon and Cornwall in her spare time.

When Covid hit and there were no more in-person gigs at host, Charlie began a weekly Facebook livestream from her home to continue her love of music.

From this, through a mutual friend, Charlie met Russell James, a fellow singer, songwriter and guitarist.

After spending months working together via Zoom, they finally met up and started to write and produce music together and were soon known as a duo called - Charlie Tyler.

In December 2022 Charlie and Russell decided to rehearse for a gig in Scunthorpe and went live on TikTok.

They started to stream live more regularly on TikTok and their fan base started to grow.

And in April 2023 they finished at the top of the UK weekly rankings, the first time a music act had achieved this.

Now Charlie’s Tik Tok account has 199.9k followers and 760.5k likes.

From this, the pair were invited to attend the awards – creators that placed in the top 10 globally were awarded a trophy.

Terry Crews hosted the event with a special live performance from Meghan Trainor.

Reflecting on the trip, Charlie Harris said: “To think that a year ago Russ and I had literally just started streaming on the platform and now we have been invited to the largest global TikTok event hosted in Miami to celebrate the apps top creators from all over the world.

“It really is a dream come true and something we never expected to have had the opportunity to be a part of.”